Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 2: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process

Chapter 8. EXPORT IMAGES FROM LIGHTROOM

When you've gone as far as you can with your photos in Lightroom you can export images to work with them in other programs.

So when should you export? It all depends on the job at hand.

Often, exporting represents the end of the processing workflow: your photo is finished and you simply want to transmit a final copy of the image somewhere else.

Other times, exporting is just the next step in a more complex workflow in which you will use the exported files to do further processing.

This chapter explains the export process and suggests some practical applications for getting your files out of Lightroom and into other software.

You're Done in Develop...Now What?

After processing in Lightroom, it's common to want to do more with your photos outside Lightroom. Maybe you want to send someone a photo in an email message, post a set of images on a photo sharing Web site, or burn a set of files to dvd for a client.

Often you will want to process the photo further in other imaging software; Lightroom can help you send the resulting image files into extended, automated workflows. Using plug-ins and post-processing scripts, Lightroom can trigger all kinds of automated processes on the exported photos.

In all these situations, when you've gone as far as you can working in Lightroom, you need to export your photos to get them to the next point in the workflow.

Exporting from Lightroom always generates new image files, but depending on the purpose of the export, ...